Pastel colours, Spring rain ending soon?

Thinking it might rain, and it was drizzling a bit, I made a few quick paintings around back of the Benny cultural center after borrowing a few movies. The structure has periwinkle-blue and maroon cladding with pops of pink and yellow. Pale green, cream white, and pink-orange trees were starting to put out flowers and leaf buds. A few dandelions were already up.  

Pastel colour trees Benny, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Looking to the community garden and condos, here is a scene framed by a turbulent cloudy sky. The rain held off for the most part and forecast calls for sunny days ahead. With a long weekend I should be able to get out and paint a few around Montreal, before heading to Bolton for a visit soon.  

Benny community garden spring, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Spring around Lachine canal and Peel Basin

A prominent bridge goes across the Lachine canal on Monk Boulevard, although the graffiti people have covered a lot of it with their names. I was drawn to the sweeping curve of the canal at this point, with a triangle of spring-green grass dotted with dandelions. In the background is part of Ville-Émard on the other side of the canal. 

Spring grass Monk bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

From the same vantage point but looking south, here is a scene of some dragon boats tied up, ready to go! In the background is one of the many factories that got converted to condos. Its trendy to live in a converted factory in Montreal, they have high ceilings and open plans inside.  

Dragon boats ready to go, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

It just occurred to me that the locks along the Lachine canal have names, this one is the Côte-Saint-Paul Lock, not far from the Monk bridge. The water was high in the lock, being held back by enormous wooden doors, with a walking path on top. I sketched out this painting first with paint in order to get the complex geometry to work. 

Côte-Saint-Paul Lock spring, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Down at the the Peel basin, the commuter train, and other trains, rumble by every five or ten minutes. Looking up at the train from this angle was neat, and the trees cast interesting shadows down a grassy embankment. A photographer looked over my shoulder and said, nice work! Some artists talk about how they feel when making art, but the fact is, I actually don't feel anything most of the time. Perhaps there is a sense of anxiety that the painting wont work, its a waste of time and paper etc. On occasion, it occurs to me that I am a painter, and its fun. 

Commuter train spring shadows, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026 

Point park spring river scenes

Next to Lachine there is a marina, protected from the river by a long point with a park on it. I paint there often, usually in spring and summer because its hard to get there in the winter. This one is looking upstream from the end of the park, with some new leaves on an overhanging tree. 

Upstream view Spring, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Looking downstream towards the Mercier bridge, you see one of the many park benches in the foreground. It was a cool and sunny afternoon, quite pleasant. I used dilute indo blue (PB60) for the water, and a mix of indo blue with burnt yellow ochre (PR102) for the park bench, with carbon black (PBk6) for the iron parts. 

Bench Mercier bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Lucky they had this sign, because two people tried to walk this way as I painted. Its a long narrow spit of land that comes off the point park, but the current on both sides is strong and dangerous. Plenty of red-winged blackbirds were cawing and flying around, they love to congregate along the shore. The fresh air here was, well, refreshing... it smelled of river water and fresh earth, without the exhaust fumes from the city. The view here goes on for miles, in the distance, its the south shore. 

No walking upstream view, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Cultural monstrosity, genetically modified fart

We went for a walk today to see the tulip beds up at the Cavendish underpass, but the city had left black tarpaulins on the gardens, and only a few tulips could struggle through. It was quite a disappointment, so I joked that the tulips were cancelled. A cultural cancellation. As I cut open old paint tubes that are mostly empty, its an opportunity to do these funny paintings. The main paint here is lemon yellow (PY175), a slightly whiteish yellow, pleasant for summery scenes. 

Culutre Cancelled, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, May 2026

What does the interior of a monstrosity look like? This painting sums it up. For the design, I emulated a digital drawing I made on my smartphone awhile ago you can see it linked here. On digital, you can go over things no problem, or erase entirely, but in watercolour, its hard to layer things unless you go light to dark, like you see in the painting. Placing the black highlights on last took a bit of courage, it can easily go wrong!

Monstrosinterior, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, May 2026

Starting with orange dots, surrounded by yellow, then circled with brown and filled in with maroon, you end up with... genetically modified farts. Enough said. 

Genetically Modified Fart, watercolour 7.5 x 11" watercolour paper, May 2026  (No. 1473b)

 

How the Cat Saw It

How do cats really see things and think about things? Who knows, but its probably different than we think. In the painting, a cat prowls after a green laser-dot from a pointer, while a one-eyed mouse creature scurries in the foreground. This painting is a remake of an old painting I made in 2009 of the same name which I never posted on the blog. When I saw the name of the painting in my catalogue, I was like, what is that!? Digging it out of the box, and it was a very odd painting, kind of Halloween style set in an orange and pink cavern. For this version I redesigned the scene a little and changed the cat around to be on the prowl. I almost didn't even sign this painting, because who else would paint something like this, other than maybe, the cat...  

How the Cat Saw It, watercolour 8 x 10" hot press, May 2026

Endless Pylons

I hope the Mayor of Montreal sees this painting, after proclaiming that orange pylons would be banished from Montreal! Its a scene looking along the Concorde Bridge towards downtown. The nice thing is they finished paving the bike path after many years of working on it, so the path was silky smooth. Traffic was actually moving along the bridge, the pylons seem to be there instead of road lines. Not sure... 

To paint Endless Pylons, I started with the road, bike path, and side of bridge, along with the river underneath. Next I filled in the sky and tree-line, with building details in the background. When dry, I applied the pylons over top of the road using a mix of benzi orange (PO62) and pyrol orange (PO73), which I call "Montreal Orange" because it replicates the exact shade of pylons. Its looking like there will be a lot of orange this summer!  

Endless Pylons, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Tulips and Montreal Orange construction

Spring is a time for colourful flowers like these orange and pink tulips, with a few yellow dandelions in the grass. Its also a time for construction signs and pylons.... "Montreal Orange". Its a mix of benzi orange paint (PO62) and red-orange paint (PO73). To do this painting, I worked up the colour highlights first, then filled in the sky, bridge, and middle-ground. Today, I used a separate brush to do the sky with phthalo blue (PB15) and blue-green (PG7), so as to keep the other brushes clean. Since I started cleaning the brushes after every trip, I noticed how much phthalo blue remains in the brushes, and it makes the bright colours difficult to achieve, especially yellow and orange. So today, the colours were really popping in my paintings. 

Tulips Cartier bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

It was pretty disappointing today... the boardwalk that oversees Old Port was completely blocked off for construction, every other street downtown was construction, and the bridges connecting to Notre Dame Island were completely blocked off. I was hoping to get to Notre Dame Island to paint the flowers and flowering-trees. You can see my post from May 3 2025 on the location. So instead I made another tribute painting to Montreal... Construction blocking the Concorde bridge with sage advice on the signs. 

Montreal FU construction, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026